Port Road
Yulie Shaper’s Place
In which Val Con receives news of his brother’s family.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen someone do the disappear-in-plain-sight trick. I wonder if there’s a reason we’re being reminded of it now.
Port Road
Surebleak
In which Val Con and Miri go house-hunting.
So, Val Con went to tell Pat Rin what was up while Miri Robertson went to tell the portmaster. Makes sense.
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The Port Road
Yulie Shaper’s Place
In which Yulie has a proposition.
We’ve previously had the names of Yulie’s four helpers as he knows them — Nathan, Mary, Walter, Abigail — and, separately, the names as Kezzi knows them — Udari, Memit, Isart, Syaera. Knowing that Nathan is Udari and Mary is Memit gives us enough of a start to line all four up.
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Jelaza Kazone
In which Miri gives thought to the future.
It is a failure of imagination on my part that it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder what might happen to the Tree if Boss Surebleak succeeded in getting the mobile members of Clan Korval thrown off the planet. Or perhaps it’s just a sign of how confident I am that that’s an outcome so unlikely as to not be worth spending imagination on.
Miri might be onto something with the idea that the Department of the Interior is planning on taking Surebleak for itself. (Indeed, we’ve already seen hints in that direction, such as the plot in “Shout of Honor”.) Which would make Boss Surebleak accusing Korval of a hostile takeover another example of someone accusing another of the thing they’d do themselves given half a chance.
Blair Road
In which the entire Council of Bosses meets to discuss the situation.
Most of the bosses we’ve already met get at least a word in at this meeting. Bosses Marriott, Engles and Torin make their first appearances here, though all have been mentioned before.
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The Bedel
In which Udari speaks.
I wonder which kompani Alosha and Silain will choose, if it comes down to it. Silain, as Droi mentions, has her own ties to the people of Surebleak, but she might feel that her duty takes her back to the ship. Alosha doesn’t appear conflicted and doesn’t have any particular ties that we know about.
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Jelaza Kazone
In which Yulie Shaper is visited by a young lady.
Yulie knows what’s important in a person. What they look like doesn’t matter nearly as much as will they do right by the cats.
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Jelaza Kazone
In which the Elders are taking an interest.
Seeing that working Turtles have names like “Edger” and “Sheather”, I wonder what the emissary is going to make of a human named “Shaper”.
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The Bedel
In which the Bedel receive long-awaited news.
Back around the time Maysl first entered the story, I spent a while speculating about how she and her parents were going to manage when the ship came to pick up the kompani. It appears that Droi has been assuming that the question wouldn’t arise, that the ship which was already late would not appear in her lifetime.
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In which there is some excitement at dinner.
I notice that when Val Con and Miri are rendering Korval’s judgement, the placement of the quotation marks indicates that they are speaking alternate sentences, but there’s a lack of dialogue tags indicating who is speaking which sentence. In a way, of course, that’s only appropriate because it doesn’t matter — either way, it’s Delm Korval speaking — but I’d be interested to know whether the judgement itself is spoken by the half of the delm whose idea it was or the half who had to be convinced that it would work.
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